How to Design an Event Logo

Few aspects of an event's publicity are as important as a good logo. A visually pleasing, creative and topical logo helps to generate public interest in the event it advertises, as well as providing an at-a-glance indication of what the event is about. As iconic symbols, logos can often stick in people's minds more easily than advertisements or event names. Designing an effective logo can make a difference in making or breaking an event.

Things You'll Need

• Graphics software

Instructions

1. Determine what central motif the logo will need to represent. The central image of the logo should be something directly related to the event, so that even a quick glance at the logo will inform the viewer what the event is about. For example, a music festival might have notes or an instrument as the motif, while a conference on issues in New York City might focus on the city skyline or the Statue of Liberty.

2. Create a color scheme for your logo. Depending on the event, this may already have been done; events affiliated with a particular company or organization, for instance, may request that the logo use the color scheme normally used by the organization. Otherwise, you'll need to come up with your own. The color palette you use should be very limited, utilizing no more than five or six colors. This is because event logos will often be displayed on banners and other media viewed from a distance, and the addition of too many colors will cause the finished product to appear cluttered and potentially difficult to recognize. Limiting your color palette also helps reduce printing costs, as sign and banner printing often costs more with each color added.

3. Decide upon an overall shape for your logo. Though the actual images used can be complex, most logos can be outlined as one or a few basic shapes. Determining this overall shape before adding details makes the process of drafting the finished logo simpler, as it gives you a guide to work within. Try to keep the overall shape symmetrical left to right, as this will make the overall design more pleasing to the eye.

4. Avoid adding unnecessary detail when drafting the logo. Since your logo will likely be displayed on banners or signs, it is imperative that it be simple enough to be clear and recognizable from a distance. While you are drafting the logo, periodically step back from your work and see how distance affects it. While text, particularly common smaller texts such as the location of the event, may be too small to be legible from far away, the logo as a visual symbol of the event should be.

5. Draw the logo at a larger size than that at which it will be used. If the event logo is going to be displayed on large signs and banners, it may be printed extremely large, and it will need to remain clear and sharp. If you are using a vector art program (such as Adobe Illustrator) to draft the logo, this is not a concern, as the final image will scale to any size without losing clarity. If, however, you are using a raster art program (such as Adobe Photoshop) or drafting by hand, you will have to draw the logo larger than the event organizers are planning on using it, so that it can be scaled down rather than up for use. When using a raster art program, be sure also to use a high resolution; 300 dots per inch is a minimum for work that is going to be printed.